When is the Gelao Worm Festival?

If you can use a variety of insects in the dish, you should first recommend the Dai people in Yunnan. There are many kinds of edible insects in the Dai people, with a wide range and a variety of eating methods. In addition to bee pupae and adult silkworms, sand pupa, flower spiders, acid ants, ant eggs and bamboo pupae are also eaten in riverside sashes.

Bamboo pupa, also known as weevil, is the pupal body of a beetle that grows in wild bamboo. It is white in color and about an inch long. Sometimes a section of bamboo, can take as many as dozens.

The bamboo pupae are first soaked in salt water to absorb the flavor. Bamboo pupae are the fattest between September and October, and some Dai people often wrap the best bamboo pupae in eggs, fry them in oil until they are yellow, and then serve them with wine. It is characterized by being charred on the outside and tender on the inside, and is considered to be the best accompaniment to alcohol.

In the Dai people, the most distinctive thing about eating insects is the cold dish mixed with sour ants. It is said to be both cool and appetizing. The acid ant is a type of yellow ant that grows on both sides of the Nu River.

Because there is a transparent small yellow ball of acid storage under its abdomen, it is called sour ants. The nests of sour ants are built on the branches and trunks of a bean plant. The nest is made by connecting the leaves of the plant with the filaments spit out by the ants, and hangs on the branches of the plant in an inverted conical shape.

The large ant nest is about a foot long. The capture of acid ants was about after the beginning of summer. <>

As long as the ant's nest is found, cut it off with a knife along the root, and then seal the entrance and exit of the ant with cement, you can capture the whole nest, shake the ant nest frequently when eating, so that the ant acid storage ball in the nest is broken, stain each other together, and then break the nest into the plate, add salt and pepper to mix, you can eat. When eating, it is sour and spicy and delicious, and it is often eaten, and it has the effect of curing miasma and killing insects, so there are often sour ants in the whole nest of hawkers in the market.

In addition to the general preference for eating sour ants, the Dai people also like to eat ant eggs, with ants as sauce, the court of the Zhou Dynasty has it, when taking ant eggs, first drive away the ants, and then wash the ant eggs, dry them, and fry them together with the eggs, and its taste is more delicious than completely using eggs. Of course, there are also people who directly use sour raw ant eggs to make cold dishes to eat, and the Dai people generally like to eat ants, which may be related to their taste of acidophilia. <>

Every year on the second day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, it is the insect eating festival of the Gelao people. On the dinner table, there are several dishes with unique flavors - locusts, sour grasshoppers, fried butterfly pupae with sugar, etc., and the whole family sits around, and the parents say:"Eat, chew its bones, eat it and cut off its grandchildren.

Immediately, the family raised their chopsticks together and ate happily. This is the scene of the old people having the Insect Festival. Some ethnic minorities in China have the custom of eating insects.

For them,"Eat insects"Not only does it help to change the taste and increase the variety of food, but it also allows a large number of insects that are harmful to agricultural production to be eliminated. For example, the Gelao people living in Guizhou Province not only have the habit of eating insects, but also have a special name"Insect Eating Festival"of festivals.

Legend has it that in ancient times, the insect plague in the old mountain was continuous for many years, and the harvest of grains failed. People are helpless in the face of insect infestations. After discussion, the village elders hung a heavy reward:

Whoever can get rid of the pest will be rewarded with three fat pigs. As soon as the red list came out, first of all, the rooster came to unveil the list, and it said:"I was the first to get rid of pests.

Unbeknownst to him, when the rooster arrived in the field, he did not eat a few insects, but his feathers were wet with dew, and he shivered and was defeated. Next, the duck unveiled, it said:"My feathers are not afraid of water, and my mouth is big, so I can definitely get rid of pests.

However, the duck swims in the water, the pests fly on the seedlings, and its neck is stretched so long that it cannot eat a few insects. Finally, a Taoist priest unveiled the list, and he said:"My spells can cure pests.

He worked hard to cast spells, but the insects could understand the spells, and the Taoist priest was defeated.

Seeing that the year's harvest is about to be eaten by pests again, people are even more anxious. At this time, that is, on the second day of the sixth month, a poor man named Jia Niang suddenly made an unexpected discovery. She returned to her parents' house from a foreign country without gifts, and she was very sad.

She thought as she walked, but she couldn't think of a way. When she walked to her own field, she was so worried that she couldn't walk, so she sat down on the field to rest. When the children saw that their mother was not leaving, they ran to the field to catch insects and play, and caught several packs at once.

When Jia Niang saw it, she suddenly thought that she would use insects as gifts. So, she took the worms home and fried them for everyone to eat, and everyone thought they were fragrant and delicious. The discovery spread all at once.

People scramble to catch bugs to eat. The number of pests was greatly reduced, and a bumper harvest was achieved that year. The village elders rewarded Jia Niang with three fat pigs, and Jia Niang killed the pigs and distributed them to the people.

Later, Jia Niang died, and people set up a temple in the middle of the field to commemorate Jia Niang, and this temple was later called"Eat the Worm Temple"。

Since then, on the second day of June every year, all villages and villages of the Lao nationality have to kill pigs for the Insect Festival. On this day, the girls who got married in the village had to go back to their parents' homes and catch insects all the way. After dinner, people gather at the Worm Eating Temple to sing and dance.

Then, line up in a long line to march to the field. Catch insects while walking, and also plant small white flags sprinkled with chicken blood, indicating demonstration against pests and commemoration of Jia Niang. The whole field is filled with a joyful atmosphere.

The Gelao people have a "Worm Eating Festival", and on this day, the whole village will gather in the "Worm Eating Temple" in the field to sing and dance. Then each family will really eat a dish made of various insects: fried locusts, fried butterfly pupa, pickled grasshoppers, etc., everyone eats very deliciously, and it will be eaten in a while.

Why celebrate the "Eating Insect Festival"? Legend has it that in ancient times, the place where the Gelao people lived was plagued by insects, and the crops were bitten by insects, and people were so anxious that they couldn't do anything. One year, an aunt named Jia Niang took her children back to her parents' house, and because she was too poor to afford gifts, she sat sadly on the ridge and worried.

Her child saw that his mother was thinking about something, so he ran to the field to catch insects and caught a large bag of insects. Jia Niang thought, there is nothing good to send anyway, so let's just send a pack of worms. So when she got home, she fried a few plates of insects for everyone to taste, and the whole family said that it tasted good.

Jia Niang happily went to the field to catch insects and fry them, and now the whole village came to taste them, and they all said that they were delicious. They also deliberately built a "Worm Eating Temple" in the field, and every year on the second day of the first month of June, the Gelao people have to celebrate the "Worm Eating Festival".